Four hundred thousand native apps. Let that number sink in for a second. When Huawei got cut off from Android and Google services back in 2019, plenty of people wrote HarmonyOS off as a desperate workaround. A consolation prize. But the numbers are starting to tell a very different story.
According to Huawei Central, Huawei has confirmed that HarmonyOS 6.0 is on track to reach over 100 million devices by the end of 2026. The native app count has already cleared 400,000. That’s not a small ecosystem propped up by a few big names. That’s a real, breathing platform with serious developer buy-in.
So why does this matter? Because for years, the biggest knock on HarmonyOS wasn’t the software itself. It was the app gap. Without Google Play and the apps people actually use every day, Huawei devices felt like a compromise. Convincing developers to build natively for a third major mobile OS, from scratch, is genuinely hard work. Most companies don’t pull it off. Huawei appears to be pulling it off.
The bigger picture here is about how the mobile world is shifting. The Android and iOS duopoly has looked unshakeable for well over a decade. But US trade restrictions basically forced Huawei to build an alternative or die trying. And instead of fading out, the company leaned into it hard, investing heavily in developer tools, incentives, and a tight integration between hardware and software that Apple users will recognise immediately.
HarmonyOS 6.0 also matters because Huawei isn’t just targeting phones. The OS runs across tablets, smartwatches, smart TVs, and connected home devices. Hitting 100 million installs across that kind of device range by 2026 is ambitious, but it’s not fantasy territory given where the numbers already sit.
Could this challenge Android or iOS globally? Not anytime soon. Huawei’s reach outside China is still limited by those same trade restrictions. But within China, and potentially across other markets looking for non-American tech stacks, HarmonyOS is becoming a serious option. And that’s a shift worth watching closely.